Persuasion

Most people understand that you need to demonstrate value in order to persuade someone. Whether you are pitching yourself to an employer, or pitching your service to a potential buyer, the other party is thinking “what’s in it for me?” That sense of perceived value is critical to t...

Jonathan and Thomas both have a great idea for their companies. Jonathan works at a multi-million dollar firm, and so does Thomas. They are equally qualified and talented. They both give their proposal to senior team members at the same time of the fiscal year. They both speak to the key decision-ma...

Frank Luntz, a Republican consultant, spearheaded the messaging change from “estate tax” to “death tax” in the 1990s. The term “death tax” had been used decades before, but it was used again at that time as Republicans sought support for its repeal. By shifting ...

Framing is everything. I’ve written before about the power of framing in persuasion. At minute 1:40 in this segment on Fox News, Dr Oz shows how it’s done, whether intentionally or not: He briefly turns a conversation about healthcare spending into one on homelessness. Because the whole ...

I’ve written before about the power of agreement as a tool of persuasion. Most people expect their “opposite” to disagree and fight them. So when you agree with someone, even if just on the surface, you immediately interrupt that predictable pattern. You get their attention, and yo...

I had a small meetup today in NYC about persuasion. (Check out my Persuasion and Charisma Meetup here.) My goal was to provide some simple tips and techniques for persuasion and influence. These are just a small sample of many persuasion concepts. Here are the main ones I highlighted (with links t...

Following up from my previous post on body language and eye contact in one of the French presidential debates, here we have the final debate. This was between the two remaining candidates, Marine Le Pen and Emmanuel Macron. We know now that Macron has won the presidency. And watching this debate, i...

A “cold read” is a statement or guess about someone that isn’t based on any real knowledge or information about them. When you give someone a cold read, you are suggesting that you understand them on a deeper level than you actually do. Psychics use cold reads all the time: [To s...

In a few weeks the UK will go to the polls and elect a new Parliament. The Conservative party of Prime Minister Theresa May is expected to win decisively. The second-biggest party is the Labor party. The leader of Labor is Jeremy Corbyn, who faces off against May during the Prime Minister’s Qu...

“You can either be right, or you can make money.” I used to trade currencies. This is a saying I heard from traders. The meaning is that, when the market turns against your analysis, you can either accept it as the new reality, OR you can stick to your guns (irrationally) and proclaim ...